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Monday 4th Week Ordinary Time

Date:

Mon, 01/29/2018

Author:

Rev. Msgr. Donald Enzweiler

A number of people believe they have escaped
the battle between good and evil.
They believe there is a middle ground between these two realities,
a neutral zone if you will,
where they can exist without having to bother with morality or truth.
For them, the best life is to remain uncommitted to either side.
Some hold that there are no forces of good, there are no forces of evil…
that such concepts are a product of the human mind, the human imagination.

My experience tells me that good and evil exist, they affect human life,
and there is no middle ground to be had.
To deny the existence of good and evil is to deny human history.
It is to deny human struggle to make sense out of this world we live in.

My experience tells me that forces of evil are real, so real that they can take possession
of the human mind, the human soul, the human spirit, the human psyche.
The result is death, destruction, darkness, imprisonment, fear, despair.
What possessed Cain to take the life of his brother Abel?

The only alternative to evil is goodness.
To choose to do nothing in the face of evil allows the evil to continue.
To not choose the good is to choose evil.
Again, some people conclude it doesn’t make a difference. It does make a difference.

I don’t know about you but I want goodness, I desire goodness, I embrace goodness.
And the greatest, most powerful, most potent source of goodness is Jesus Christ.
No one in human history has shown themselves to be strong enough and willing enough
to overcome and defeat what is evil.

I have tried to make it a habit that sometime soon after I wake up in the morning I say
“Lord Jesus Christ protect me from the forces of evil, save me from evil, rescue me from evil.
Guard my mind, my heart, my lips, my imagination from what is evil.
Help me to know the good, to desire the good, to promote the good…
for myself, for others, for the world.

Every time we seek grace, we are seeking the goodness of God.
Goodness needs to become the bread that we eat and the air that we breath.

If we don’t actively and intentionally seek to be possessed by goodness,
we will become possessed by evil.
If we don’t take refuge in goodness we will become victims of evil.